Shift: A Novel (25 page)

“And Caspar?” The name rang a bell, but BC couldn’t place it.

Jarrell shrugged. “Who knows? Even odds says there never was a Caspar—that the whole thing was just a story the Wiz made up, or maybe even Melchior. At any rate, Melchior got a reputation for being a crazy fuck—among other things, he’s repeatedly destroyed his own file, so no one besides the Wiz knows his real name or what he’s been up to for the last ten or twenty years.” Jarrell looked BC up and down in his vacuum repairman’s uniform. “You, my friend, are one lucky son of a bitch.”

BC ignored this.

“So how do I find him?”

“Melchior? Fat fucking chance. The Wiz had a nervous breakdown in ’56 after the whole Hungary thing blew up. I guess he’d told the rebels that if they rose up against the Soviet Union, the U.S. would help them out. But Ike, you know, he’d already fought his war, plus he had an election coming up, and he wanted nothing to do with it. Thousands of rebels were pretty much slaughtered, and the Wiz took it hard. Ended up going for shock treatments and all that, never really did recover. They farmed him out to London, then finally forced him out entirely last year. Without his patron, Melchior was pretty much persona non grata. You’d hear stories. One day he was in the Congo, the next in Southeast Asia, then he was off to Cuba. They could’ve all been true or all been lies. But the one thing I can tell you is that he don’t spend much time in DC.” Jarrell paused. “Although, come to think of it, if he is here, you might want to check out Madam Song’s.”

“And she is?”

“Oh baby.” Jarrell licked his lips like a teenager in the locker room about to describe the wonders of eating pussy. “Only the finest purveyor of female flesh on the Eastern seaboard. In addition to running an exclusive brothel, she also procures and supplies girls to mob bosses and politicians and other movers and shakers. Specializes in exotics—Orientals, Africans, niche-market cooz. She and Melchior were once ‘linked,’ as they say in the gossip pages, and there’s a reasonable chance he’s paid her a visit if he’s back in town.”

“For such a supposedly super-secret spy, his habits seem pretty well documented.”

Jarrell shook his head at BC like a disappointed teacher. “You got to understand how the trade works. There’s no such thing as a secret no one knows. Espionage is built on half truths, quarter truths, and lots and lots of lies. Every piece of useful information is attached to dozens, hundreds, of pieces of misinformation, and the best spy is the one who can sift through the bullshit to the truth. Part of it’s what we call legend—the invented story that creates an operative’s cover—and part of it’s just aura, the mystique that Melchior cultivates in order to give himself more clout out there in spyland. I’ve probably heard more stories about the Wise Men than I have about my uncle Joe, but the
difference is 99.9 percent of those stories are complete and utter fabrications.”

“You don’t have an uncle Joe.”

“No.” Jarrell smiled. “But Virgil Parker does.”

“So what you’re saying is that you have no idea if Melchior really even knows Madam Song, let alone if he’ll have visited her.”

“What I’m saying is that Melchior’s name has been mentioned in connection with Song’s often enough that there’s probably something there. Whether they fucked once, or she’s an agent herself, or just runs a really good brothel, is anyone’s guess.” Jarrell shrugged. “But yeah, that’s about all the help I can give you.”

“There is one more thing. A woman. I don’t think she has anything to do with this, but—”

“Who?”

“Her name is Mary Meyer. She—”

“Yeah, I know who she is, and what she did.
Who
she did.”

“She gave him LSD.”

Jarrell shrugged. “So? He’s already hopped up on more pain pills and antianxiety drugs than all the housewives in Arlington combined. What’s one more?”

“She got the LSD from Edward Logan.”

Jarrell chuckled. “Well, he doesn’t appear to have developed any mental powers or turned into a zombie, so I think he’s safe, for now.”

BC stood up. “Well, thank you again.” He couldn’t help but ask. “Why did you help me?”

Jarrell poured himself his fifth or sixth whiskey before answering. He looked around the maze of newspapers with their colored markers, the myriad coded and recoded and decoded secrets they contained, then turned back to BC.

“I dunno. Because you found me, I suppose. Because you broke into J. Edgar Hoover’s Vault. Anyone who can do that is obviously fairly good at what he does. He’s also probably insane, but in a way I can identify with.” He waved his drink at the stacks of paper. “I’d say it’s better than even odds that you’re gonna end up in a body bag like Logan, but still, I’ve always been a sucker for the underdog.” He raised his drink to BC. “Good hunting.”

A knock sounded at the door
.

“Come in.”

Chul-moo opened the door quietly, almost apologetically.

“The senator is leaving,” he said in Korean.

Song didn’t look up from her desk. “He had a good time?”

“Laurel says he gave her a gown from a French designer. Yves Saint Laurent. Garrison says she practically had him posing for the cameras. Also, the background check on Paul Ingram came up clean.”

“If Paul Ingram is a Swedish businessman, I’m a Dallas housewife. Well, at least he’s taken the time to build a good cover. Book him for Friday. Set him up with Njeri. If he’s got any secrets, she’ll beat them out of him. Is that all?”

“There was a call from San Francisco.”

Song looked up. “Melchior’s Nazi? What did he want?”

“He said that Melchior wants us to move the new girl.”

“Move her where? The Mayflower? The Willard? Did he say why Melchior wanted her moved?” When Chul-moo shook his head, Song said, “If Melchior wants to foot the bill for different accommodations, he can call and tell me himself. Till then, she’s staying here. Please make sure Laurel gets back to the residence. I’ll see myself home.”

“Of course.” The tiniest of pauses. “Shall I check on her?”

“On?”

“The new girl?”

Chul-moo’s expression hadn’t changed, but the faintest note—of longing, pleading almost, had entered his voice. It was hard to imagine this knife of a boy asking for anything, let alone permission to visit a girl. Song had selected Chul-moo as her majordomo because his sexual taste ran to middle-aged white men, on whom he took great pleasure in exacting revenge for the destruction of his country (when Song got a client who particularly enjoyed being humiliated, she would send Chulmoo in instead of one of the girls; despite his youth, he was surprisingly
learned in the ways of inflicting pain, whether lethal or remediable). Yet she could have sworn there was a note of genuine desire in Chul-moo’s voice.

“That’s not necessary. I’ll be looking in on her myself.”

“Of course.” Chul-moo wasn’t quite able to hide his disappointment. With a slight bow, he backed from the room.

Song remained in her office for another hour, reviewing the day’s takings, monetary and photographic, and checking tomorrow’s appointments, including an Iraqi Baathist who controlled nearly a third of that country’s oil, and had helped to oust General Qasim in February after the latter established ties with the Soviet Union (Qasim himself had been a client here five years ago, just before he seized power). She’d contacted CIA to see if they were interested in incriminating photographs—the man’s name was Saddam Hussein, and there was something about the set of his mouth that suggested he would get up to some
very
naughty things in bed—or if they wanted one of her more experienced girls to pump him for information, but the Company had turned her down, which suggested they were already working with him. That information was also valuable, although much trickier to sell, and she should have put out feelers to KGB to see if they were interested, but she was distracted tonight. For one thing, there was this Ingram fellow, whom she was pretty sure
was
KGB. For another, there was “the new girl,” as Chul-moo called her. Song wasn’t sure why she’d agreed to take custody of Nancy for Melchior, especially after she’d ferried Orpheus to San Francisco free of charge. It was a scenario with many possible drawbacks, including running afoul of CIA. Song was certainly not averse to risk-taking—you didn’t build the kind of business she’d created without taking a few gambles. But it was hard to see the payoff in this deal with Melchior. Unless, of course, it was Melchior himself.

Meanwhile, there was the girl. Nancy. Song had never met someone quite like her. Someone so seemingly helpless, yet who incurred the aid of powerful forces wherever she went. One look at her and you wanted to protect her. No, that wasn’t quite it. One look
from
her and you wanted to protect her. Take Chul-moo. He guarded her more fiercely than any of the other girls, and she didn’t even work here. Well, not yet anyway.

Melchior’d told her that Nancy had worked as a hooker in Boston, but, unlike the girls Song hired, she didn’t seem to have entered into her profession happily. She drank too much (although she hadn’t touched a drop since coming to Song’s), and practically radiated miserableness. But that morning, before Song left the residence, she’d stopped in Nancy’s room, and Nancy had asked to work for her. Taken aback, Song had said she would think about it and get back to her at the end of the day.

She wondered about the call from Keller, though. If she had to guess, she’d say say that “Orpheus” had gotten away from the doctor and was on his way here. Well, let him come. From what she’d seen of him on the plane, he didn’t look like much of a threat, and it was going to take more than one spurned lover to break into her house.

She closed her ledger now, stored it in the safe with the day’s cash, headed for the residence. The Newport Place property was solely for business. She and the girls lived in a town house on N, directly behind the bordello and connected to it by a tunnel built with taxpayer dollars (although even the Company, who funneled her the money, didn’t know of its existence). No doubt it was an extravagance, but it was a mark of Song’s power, and she never failed to feel as though she were a queen striding the length of a great hall as she traversed the narrow cement chute. She had the palace, the imperial guard, a dozen ladies in waiting. All she lacked was a consort. If only he hadn’t been wearing that shabby suit. And those
sandals
. Her lip curled in disgust at the very thought.

In the residence, she took the elevator to the fourth floor and knocked on her guest’s door.

“Come in,” a soft voice called.

This time it was Song who opened the door quietly, obsequiously even, as if she were the servant, the room’s occupant the mistress. Nancy sat at her dressing table, her hair and makeup perfect, as if she’d been expecting the call.

“I just wanted to check in on you.”

“I’m fine, thank you.” Nancy pointed to a plate of ginger cookies. “Chul-moo came by earlier.”

Song stared at the girl. What was it about her? She was lovely, no doubt about that. But Song trafficked in some of the most beautiful girls in the world and was unfazed by looks. No, there was something
special about this girl. Something that made you want to soothe her. Protect her. Give her whatever she wanted. She was bewitching.

“I wanted to know if you’d thought further about your offer this morning.”

“What is there to think about?”

“You’re here as my guest. You don’t have to work for your keep.”

“I’m here as your prisoner,” Nancy said, and even though there wasn’t any acrimony in her voice, it still stabbed Song like a spear of ice in the guts. “But that’s neither here nor there. Seducing people is simply what I do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” Nancy said, and there was that curious helplessness again. Song wanted to wrap her arms around the girl—and the last person she’d hugged had been her brother’s murdered body. She knew she should refuse Nancy’s request. But she also wanted to know what would happen if she said yes.

“You’re Persian, no?”

Nancy nodded.

“Do you happen to speak Arabic by any chance?”

“Some. It’s rusty, though.”

“I have an Iraqi gentleman coming in tomorrow. I’m sure he’d appreciate not having to bring a translator into the room.”

Naz looked at herself in the mirror. She brought the brush to her hair, then put it down again—a tacit acknowledgment that the face that looked back at her was already perfect.

“He won’t be disappointed,” she said quietly.

“No,” Song mused. “For some reason, I don’t think he will be.”

It was almost true: clothes make the man. Just as the maid in
the Department of Justice Building had taken a clean-cut white fellow in a soiled uniform ten sizes too big for an electrician, so did the residents of Dupont Circle take BC for one of them: a man of the world, of power, influence, prospects—and sexual needs.

He paused before the double doors of the Newport Place town house: a sheet of plate glass sandwiched between an ornately curved wrought-iron scroll without and golden gossamer curtains within. The curtains were just thick enough to obscure the view inside but still thin enough to allow a globe of soft yellow light to illuminate the porch, whose upper landing was shaded by a delicate tangle of wisteria. And there, reflected in the gold-backed sheet of glass, stood the new, improved BC Querrey. Beauregard Gamin, at your service, ma’am.

Or, rather, madam.

“Song won’t be
fooled by cheap imitations,” Jarrell had told BC. “You go to her house, you wear bespoke or nothing at all.” He’d given BC the name of a tailor on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown. Told him to order two suits, one in a simple charcoal twill, the other in a shiny black. “Tell him to widen the lapels a bit on the charcoal, cut the trousers a little loose in the ankle—say, 1960, 1961 at the latest. You want it to look like you’ve had it for a while. The black should be mod—one-inch lapels, stovepipe legs. The jacket should fall just above the bottom of your ass and the trouser cuffs should expose a good inch of sock when you’re standing up. Trust me, Song’s business is appearances. She’ll notice.”